“'Tiswhat ye've a right to, Davy,” said Polly Ann, and she handed me a little buckskin bag on which she had been sewing. I opened it with trembling fingers, and poured out, chinking on the table, such a motley collection of coins as was never seen,—Spanish milled dollars, English sovereigns and crowns and shillings, paper issues of the Confederacy, and I know not what else. Tom looked on with a grin, while little Tom and Peggy reached out their hands in delight, their mother vigorously blocking their intentions.
“Ye've earned it yerself,” said Polly Ann, forestalling my protest; “'tis what ye got by the mill, and I've laid it by bit by bit for yer eddication.”
“And what do you get?” I cried, striving by feigned anger to keep the tears back from my eyes. “Have you no family to support?”
“Faith,” she answered, “we have the mill that ye gave us, and the farm, and Tom's rifle. I reckon we'll fare better than ye think, tho' we'll miss ye sore about the place.”
I picked out two sovereigns from the heap, dropped them in the bag, and thrust it into my hunting shirt.
“There,” said I, my voice having no great steadiness, “not a penny more. I'll keep the bag for your sake, Polly Ann, and I'll take the mare for Tom's.”
She had had a song on her lips ever since our coming back from Danville, seven days agone, a song on her lips and banter on her tongue, as she made me a new hunting shirt and breeches for the journey across the mountains.And now with a sudden movement she burst into tears and flung her arms about my neck.
“Oh, Davy, 'tis no time to be stubborn,” she sobbed, “and eddication is a costly thing. Ever sence I found ye on the trace, years ago, I've thought of ye one day as a great man. And when ye come back to us so big and l'arned, I'd wish to be saying with pride that I helped ye.”
“And who else, Polly Ann?” I faltered, my heart racked with the parting. “You found me a homeless waif, and you gave me a home and a father and mother.”
“Davy, ye'll not forget us when ye're great, I know ye'll not. 'Tis not in ye.”
She stood back and smiled at me through her tears. The light of heaven was in that smile, and I have dreamed of it even since age has crept upon me. Truly, God sets his own mark on the pure in heart, on the unselfish.
I glanced for the last time around the rude cabin, every timber of which was dedicated to our sacrifices and our love: the fireplace with its rough stones, on the pegs the quaint butternut garments which Polly Ann had stitched, the baby in his bark cradle, the rough bedstead and the little trundle pushed under it,—and the very homely odor of the place is dear to me yet. Despite the rigors and the dangers of my life here, should I ever again find such happiness and peace in the world? The children clung to my knees; and with a “God bless ye, Davy, and come back to us,” Tom squeezed my hand until I winced with pain. I leaped on the mare, and with blinded eyes rode down the familiar trail, past the mill, to Harrodsburg.
There Mr. Neville Colfax was waiting to take me across the mountains.
There is a story in every man's life, like the kernel in the shell of a hickory nut. I am ill acquainted with the arts of a biographer, but I seek to give in these pages little of the shell and the whole of the kernel of mine. 'Twould be unwise and tiresome to recount the journeyover the bare mountains with my new friend and benefactor. He was a strange gentleman, now jolly enough to make me shake with laughter and forget the sorrow of my parting, now moody for a night and a day; now he was all sweetness, now all fire; now he was abstemious, now self-indulgent and prodigal. He had a will like flint, and under it a soft heart. Cross his moods, and he hated you. I never thought to cross them, therefore he called me Davy, and his friendliness grew with our journey. His anger turned against rocks and rivers, landlords and emigrants, but never against me. And for this I was silently thankful.
And how had he come to take me over the mountains, and to put me in the way of studying law? Mindful of the kernel of my story, I have shortened the chapter to tell you out of the proper place. Major Colfax had made Tom and me sup with himself and Colonel Clark at the inn in Danville. And so pleased had the Major professed himself with my story of having outwitted his agent, that he must needs have more of my adventures. Colonel Clark gave him some, and Tom,—his tongue loosed by the toddy,—others. And the Colonel added to the debt I owed him by suggesting that Major Colfax take me to Virginia and recommend me to a lawyer there.
“Nay,” cried the Major, “I will do more. I like the lad, for he is modest despite the way you have paraded him. I have an uncle in Richmond, Judge Wentworth, to whom I will take him in person. And when the Judge has done with him, if he is not flayed and tattooed with Blackstone, you may flay and tattoo me.”
Thus did I break through my environment. And it was settled that I should meet the Major in seven days at Harrodstown.
Once in the journey did the Major make mention of a subject which had troubled me.
“Davy,” said he, “Clark has changed. He is not the same man he was when I saw him in Williamsburg demanding supplies for his campaign.”
“Virginia has used him shamefully, sir,” I answered,and suddenly there came flooding to my mind things I had heard the Colonel say in the campaign.
“Commonwealths have short memories,” said the Major; “they will accept any sacrifice with a smile. Shakespeare, I believe, speaks of royal ingratitude—he knew not commonwealths. Clark was close-lipped once, not given to levity and—to toddy. There, there, he is my friend as well as yours, and I will prove it by pushing his cause in Virginia. Is yours Scotch anger? Then the devil fend me from it. A monarch would have given him fifty thousand acres on the Wabash, a palace, and a sufficient annuity. Virginia has given him a sword, eight thousand wild acres to be sure, repudiated the debts of his army, and left him to starve. Is there no room for a genius in our infant military establishment?”
At length, as Christmas drew near, we came to Major Colfax's seat, some forty miles out of the town of Richmond. It was called Neville's Grange, the Major's grandfather having so named it when he came out from England some sixty years before. It was a huge, rambling, draughty house of wood,—mortgaged, so the Major cheerfully informed me, thanks to the patriotism of the family. At Neville's Grange the Major kept a somewhat roisterous bachelor's hall. The place was overrun with negroes and dogs, and scarce a night went by that there was not merrymaking in the house with the neighbors. The time passed pleasantly enough until one frosty January morning Major Colfax had a twinge of remembrance, cried out for horses, took me into Richmond, and presented me to that very learned and decorous gentleman, Judge Wentworth.
My studies began within the hour of my arrival.
I shallburden no one with the dry chronicles of a law office. The acquirement of learning is a slow process in life, and perchance a slower one in the telling. I lacked not application during the three years of my stay in Richmond, and to earn my living I worked at such odd tasks as came my way.
The Judge resembled Major Colfax in but one trait: he was choleric. But he was painstaking and cautious, and I soon found out that he looked askance upon any one whom his nephew might recommend. He liked the Major, but he vowed him to be a roisterer and spendthrift, and one day, some months after my advent, the Judge asked me flatly how I came to fall in with Major Colfax. I told him. At the end of this conversation he took my breath away by bidding me come to live with him. Like many lawyers of that time, he had a little house in one corner of his grounds for his office. It stood under great spreading trees, and there I was wont to sit through many a summer day wrestling with the authorities. In the evenings we would have political arguments, for the Confederacy was in a seething state between the Federalists and the Republicans over the new Constitution, now ratified. Between the Federalists and the Jacobins, I would better say, for the virulence of the French Revolution was soon to be reflected among the parties on our side. Kentucky, swelled into an unmanageable territory, was come near to rebellion because the government was not strong enough to wrest from Spain the free navigation of the Mississippi.
And yet I yearned to go back, and looked forward eagerly to the time when I should have stored enough in my head to gain admission to the bar. I was therefore greatly embarrassed, when my examinations came, by an offer from Judge Wentworth to stay in Richmond and help him with his practice. It was an offer not to be lightly set aside, and yet I had made up my mind. He flew into a passion because of my desire to return to a wild country of outlaws and vagabonds.
“Why, damme,” he cried, “Kentucky and this pretty State of Franklin which desired to chip off from North Carolina are traitorous places. Disloyal to Congress! Intriguing with a Spanish minister and the Spanish governor of Louisiana to secede from their own people and join the King of Spain. Bah!” he exclaimed, “if our new Federal Constitution is adopted I would hang Jack Sevier of Franklin and your Kentuckian Wilkinson to the highest trees west of the mountains.”
I can see the little gentleman as he spoke, his black broadcloth coat and lace ruffles, his hand clutching the gold head of his cane, his face screwed up with indignation under his white wig. It was on a Sunday, and he was standing by the lilac bushes on the lawn in front of his square brick house.
“David,” said he, more calmly, “I trust I have taught you something besides the law. I trust I have taught you that a strong Federal government alone will be the salvation of our country.”
“You cannot blame Kentucky greatly, sir,” said I, feeling that I must stand up for my friends. “The Federal government has done little enough for its people, and treated them to a deal of neglect. They won that western country for themselves with no Federal nor Virginia or North Carolina troops to help them. No man east of the mountains knows what that fight has been. No man east of the mountains knows the horror of that Indian warfare. This government gives them no protection now. Nay, Congress cannot even procure for them an outlet for their commerce. They must trade or perish.Spain closes the Mississippi, arrests our merchants, seizes their goods, and often throws them into prison. No wonder they scorn the Congress as weak and impotent.”
The Judge stared at me aghast. It was the first time I had dared oppose him on this subject.
“What,” he sputtered, “what? You are a Separatist,—you whom I have received into the bosom of my family!” Seizing the cane at the middle, he brandished it in my face.
“Don't misunderstand me, sir,” said I. “You have given me books to read, and have taught me what may be the destiny of our nation on this continent. But you must forgive a people whose lives have been spent in a fierce struggle for their homes, whose families have nearly all lost some member by massacre, who are separated by hundreds of miles of wilderness from you.”
He looked at me speechless, and turned and walked into the house. I thought I had sinned past forgiveness, and I was beyond description uncomfortable, for he had been like a parent to me. But the next morning, at half after seven, he walked into the little office and laid down some gold pieces on my table. Gold was very scarce in those days.
“They are for your journey, David,” said he. “My only comfort in your going back is that you may grow up to put some temperance into their wild heads. I have a commission for you at Jonesboro, in what was once the unspeakable State of Franklin. You can stop there on your way to Kentucky.” He drew from his pocket a great bulky letter, addressed to “Thomas Wright, Esquire, Barrister-at-law in Jonesboro, North Carolina.” For the good gentleman could not bring himself to write Franklin.
It was late in September of the year 1788 when I set out on my homeward way—for Kentucky was home to me. I was going back to Polly Ann and Tom, and visions of that home-coming rose before my eyes as I rode. In a packet in my saddle-bags were some dozen letters which Mr. Wrenn, the schoolmaster at Harrodstown, had writat Polly Ann's bidding. I have the letters yet. For Mr. Wrenn was plainly an artist, and had set down on the paper the words just as they had flowed from her heart. Ay, and there was news in the letters, though not surprising news among those pioneer families whom God blessed so abundantly. Since David Ritchie McChesney (I mention the name with pride) had risen above the necessities of a bark cradle, two more had succeeded him, a brother and a sister. I spurred my horse onward, and thought impatiently of the weary leagues between my family and me.
I have often pictured myself on that journey. I was twenty-one years of age, though one would have called me older. My looks were nothing to boast of, and I was grown up tall and weedy, so that I must have made quite a comical sight, with my long legs dangling on either side of the pony. I wore a suit of gray homespun, and in my saddle-bags I carried four precious law books, the stock in trade which my generous patron had given me. But as I mounted the slopes of the mountains my spirits rose too at the prospect of the life before me. The woods were all aflame with color, with wine and amber and gold, and the hills wore the misty mantle of shadowy blue so dear to my youthful memory. As I left the rude taverns of a morning and jogged along the heights, I watched the vapors rise and roll away from the valleys far beneath, and saw great flocks of ducks and swans and cackling geese darkening the air in their southward flight. Strange that I fell in with no company, for the trail leading into the Tennessee country was widened and broadened beyond belief, and everywhere I came upon blackened fires and abandoned lean-tos, and refuse bones gnawed by the wolves and bleached by the weather. I slept in some of these lean-tos, with my fire going brightly, indifferent to the howl of wolves in chase or the scream of a panther pouncing on its prey. For I was born of the wilderness. It had no terrors for me, nor did I ever feel alone. The great cliffs with their clinging, gnarled trees, the vast mountains clothed in the motley colors of the autumn,the sweet and smoky smell of the Indian summer,—all were dear to me.
As I drew near to Jonesboro my thoughts began to dwell upon that strange and fascinating man who had entertained Polly Ann and Tom and me so lavishly on our way to Kentucky,—Captain John Sevier. For he had made a great noise in the world since then, and the wrath of such men as my late patron was heavy upon him. Yes, John Sevier, Nollichucky Jack, had been a king in all but name since I had seen him, the head of such a principality as stirred the blood to read about. It comprised the Watauga settlement among the mountains of what is now Tennessee, and was called prosaically (as is the wont of the Anglo-Saxon) the free State of Franklin. There were certain conservative and unimaginative souls in this mountain principality who for various reasons held their old allegiance to the State of North Carolina. One Colonel Tipton led these loyalist forces, and armed partisans of either side had for some years ridden up and down the length of the land, burning and pillaging and slaying. We in Virginia had heard of two sets of courts in Franklin, of two sets of legislators. But of late the rumor had grown persistently that Nollichucky Jack was now a kind of fugitive, and that he had passed the summer pleasantly enough fighting Indians in the vicinity of Nick-a-jack Cave.
It was court day as I rode into the little town of Jonesboro, the air sparkling like a blue diamond over the mountain crests, and I drew deep into my lungs once more the scent of the frontier life I had loved so well. In the streets currents of excited men flowed and backed and eddied, backwoodsmen and farmers in the familiar hunting shirts of hide or homespun, and lawyers in dress less rude. A line of horses stood kicking and switching their tails in front of the log tavern, rough carts and wagons had been left here and there with their poles on the ground, and between these, piles of skins were heaped up and bags of corn and grain. The log meeting-house was deserted, but the court-house was the centre of such aswirling crowd as I had often seen at Harrodstown. Now there are brawls and brawls, and I should have thought with shame of my Kentucky bringing-up had I not perceived that this was no ordinary court day, and that an unusual excitement was in the wind.
Tying my horse, and making my way through the press in front of the tavern door, I entered the common room, and found it stifling, brawling and drinking going on apace. Scarce had I found a seat before the whole room was emptied by one consent, all crowding out of the door after two men who began a rough-and-tumble fight in the street. I had seen rough-and-tumble fights in Kentucky, and if I have forborne to speak of them it is because there always has been within me a loathing for them. And so I sat quietly in the common room until the landlord came. I asked him if he could direct me to Mr. Wright's house, as I had a letter for that gentleman. His answer was to grin at me incredulously.
“I reckoned you wah'nt from these parts,” said he. “Wright's—out o' town.”
“What is the excitement?” I demanded.
He stared at me.
“Nollichucky Jack's been heah, in Jonesboro, young man,” said he.
“What,” I exclaimed, “Colonel Sevier?”
“Ay, Sevier,” he repeated. “With Martin and Tipton and all the Caroliny men right heah, having a council of mility officers in the court-house, in rides Jack with his frontier boys like a whirlwind. He bean't afeard of 'em, and a bench warrant out ag'in him for high treason. Never seed sech a recklessness. Never had sech a jamboree sence I kept the tavern. They was in this here room most of the day, and they was five fights before they set down to dinner.”
“And Colonel Tipton?” I said.
“Oh, Tipton,” said he, “he hain't afeard neither, but he hain't got men enough.”
“And where is Sevier now?” I demanded.
“How long hev you ben in town?” was his answer.
I told him.
“Wal,” said he, shifting his tobacco from one sallow cheek to the other, “I reckon he and his boys rud out just afore you come in. Mark me,” he added, “when I tell ye there'll be trouble yet. Tipton and Martin and the Caroliny folks is burnin' mad with Chucky Jack for the murder of Corn Tassel and other peaceful chiefs. But Jack hez a wild lot with him,—some of the Nollichucky Cave traders, and there's one young lad that looks like he was a gentleman once. I reckon Jack himself wouldn't like to get into a fight with him. He's a wild one. Great Goliah,” he exclaimed, running to the door, “ef thar ain't a-goin' to be another fight! Never seed sech a day in Jonesboro.”
I likewise ran to the door, and this fight interested me. There was a great, black-bearded mountaineer-farmer-desperado in the midst of a circle, pouring out a torrent of abuse at a tall young man.
“That thar's Hump Gibson,” said the landlord, genially pointing out the black-bearded ruffian, “and the young lawyer feller hez git a jedgment ag'in him. He's got spunk, but I reckon Hump 'll t'ar the innards out'n him ef he stands thar a great while.”
“Ye'll git jedgment ag'in me, ye Caroliny splinter, will ye?” yelled Mr. Gibson, with an oath. “I'll pay Bill Wilder the skins when I git ready, and all the pinhook lawyers in Washington County won't budge me a mite.”
“You'll pay Bill Wilder or go to jail, by the eternal,” cried the young man, quite as angrily, whereupon I looked upon him with a mixture of admiration and commiseration, with a gulping certainty in my throat that I was about to see murder done. He was a strange young man, with the rare marked look that would compel even a poor memory to pick him out again. For example, he was very tall and very slim, with red hair blown every which way over a high and towering forehead that seemed as long as the face under it. The face, too, was long, and all freckled by the weather. The blue eyes held me in wonder, and these blazed with suchprodigious wrath that, if a look could have killed, Hump Gibson would have been stricken on the spot. Mr. Gibson was, however, very much alive.
“Skin out o' here afore I kill ye,” he shouted, and he charged at the slim young man like a buffalo, while the crowd held its breath. I, who had looked upon cruel sights in my day, was turning away with a kind of sickening when I saw the slim young man dodge the rush. He did more. With two strides of his long legs he reached the fence, ripped off the topmost rail, and his huge antagonist, having changed his direction and coming at him with a bellow, was met with the point of a scantling in the pit of his stomach, and Mr. Gibson fell heavily to the ground. It had all happened in a twinkling, and there was a moment's lull while the minds of the onlookers needed readjustment, and then they gave vent to ecstasies of delight.
“Great Goliah!” cried the landlord, breathlessly, “he shet him up jest like a jack-knife.”
Awe-struck, I looked at the tall young man, and he was the very essence of wrath. Unmindful of the plaudits, he stood brandishing the fence-rail over the great, writhing figure on the ground. And he was slobbering. I recall that this fact gave a twinge to something in my memory.
“Come on, Hump Gibson,” he cried, “come on!”—at which the crowd went wild with pure joy. Witticisms flew.
“Thought ye was goin' to eat 'im up, Hump?” said a friend.
“Ye ain't hed yer meal yet, Hump,” reminded another.
Mr. Hump Gibson arose slowly out of the dust, yet he did not stand straight.
“Come on, come on!” cried the young lawyer-fellow, and he thrust the point of the rail within a foot of Mr. Gibson's stomach.
“Come on, Hump!” howled the crowd, but Mr. Gibson stood irresolute. He lacked the supreme test of courage which was demanded on this occasion. Then he turned and walked away very slowly, as though his pace mightmitigate in some degree the shame of his retreat. The young man flung away the fence-rail, and, thrusting aside the overzealous among his admirers, he strode past me into the tavern, his anger still hot.
“Hooray fer Jackson!” they shouted. “Hooray fer Andy Jackson!”
Andy Jackson! Then I knew. Then I remembered a slim, wild, sandy-haired boy digging his toes in the red mud long ago at the Waxhaws Settlement. And I recalled with a smile my own fierce struggle at the schoolhouse with the same boy, and how his slobbering had been my salvation. I turned and went in after him with the landlord, who was rubbing his hands with glee.
“I reckon Hump won't come crowin' round heah any more co't days, Mr. Jackson,” said our host.
But Mr. Jackson swept the room with his eyes and then glared at the landlord so that he gave back.
“Where's my man?” he demanded.
“Your man, Mr. Jackson?” stammered the host.
“Great Jehovah!” cried Mr. Jackson, “I believe he's afraid to race. He had a horse that could show heels to my Nancy, did he? And he's gone, you say?”
A light seemed to dawn on the landlord's countenance.
“God bless ye, Mr. Jackson!” he cried, “ye don't mean that young daredevil that was with Sevier?”
“With Sevier?” says Jackson.
“Ay,” says the landlord; “he's been a-fightin with Sevier all summer, and I reckon he ain't afeard of nothin' any more than you. Wait—his name was Temple—Nick Temple, they called him.”
“Nick Temple!” I cried, starting forward.
“Where's he gone?” said Mr. Jackson. “He was going to bet me a six-forty he has at Nashboro that his horse could beat mine on the Greasy Cove track. Where's he gone?”
“Gone!” said the landlord, apologetically, “Nollichucky Jack and his boys left town an hour ago.”
“Is he a man of honor or isn't he?” said Mr. Jackson, fiercely.
“Lord, sir, I only seen him once, but I'd stake my oath on it.”
“Do you mean to say Mr. Temple has been here—Nicholas Temple?” I said.
The bewildered landlord turned towards me helplessly.
“Who the devil are you, sir?” cried Mr. Jackson.
“Tell me what this Mr. Temple was like,” said I.
The landlord's face lighted up.
“Faith, a thoroughbred hoss,” says he; “sech nostrils, and sech a gray eye with the devil in it fer go—yellow ha'r, and ez tall ez Mr. Jackson heah.”
“And you say he's gone off again with Sevier?”
“They rud into town” (he lowered his voice, for the room was filling), “snapped their fingers at Tipton and his warrant, and rud out ag'in. My God, but that was like Nollichucky Jack. Say, stranger, when your Mr. Temple smiled—”
“He is the man!” I cried; “tell me where to find him.”
Mr. Jackson, who had been divided between astonishment and impatience and anger, burst out again.
“What the devil do you mean by interfering with my business, sir?”
“Because it is my business too,” I answered, quite as testily; “my claim on Mr. Temple is greater than yours.”
“By Jehovah!” cried Jackson, “come outside, sir, come outside!”
The landlord backed away, and the men in the tavern began to press around us expectantly.
“Gallop into him, Andy!” cried one.
“Don't let him git near no fences, stranger,” said another.
Mr. Jackson turned on this man with such truculence that he edged away to the rear of the room.
“Step out, sir,” said Mr. Jackson, starting for the door before I could reply. I followed perforce, not without misgivings, the crowd pushing eagerly after. Before we reached the dusty street Jackson began pulling off his coat. In a trice the shouting onlookers had made a ring, and we stood facing each other, he in his shirt-sleeves.
“We'll fight fair,” said he, his lips wetting.
“Very good,” said I, “if you are still accustomed to this hasty manner. You have not asked my name, my standing, nor my reasons for wanting Mr. Temple.”
I know not whether it was what I said that made him stare, or how I said it.
“Pistols, if you like,” said he.
“No,” said I; “I am in a hurry to find Mr. Temple. I fought you this way once, and it's quicker.”
“You fought me this way once?” he repeated. The noise of the crowd was hushed, and they drew nearer to hear.
“Come, Mr. Jackson,” said I, “you are a lawyer and a gentleman, and so am I. I do not care to be beaten to a pulp, but I am not afraid of you. And I am in a hurry. If you will step back into the tavern, I will explain to you my reasons for wishing to get to Mr. Temple.”
Mr. Jackson stared at me the more.
“By the eternal,” said he, “you are a cool man. Give me my coat,” he shouted to the bystanders, and they helped him on with it. “Now,” said he, as they made to follow him, “keep back. I would talk to this gentleman. By the heavens,” he cried, when he had gained the room, “I believe you are not afraid of me. I saw it in your eyes.”
Then I laughed.
“Mr. Jackson,” said I, “doubtless you do not remember a homeless boy named David whom you took to your uncle's house in the Waxhaws—”
“I do,” he exclaimed, “as I live I do. Why, we slept together.”
“And you stumped your toe getting into bed and swore,” said I.
At that he laughed so heartily that the landlord came running across the room.
“And we fought together at the Old Fields School. Are you that boy?” and he scanned me again. “By God, I believe you are.” Suddenly his face clouded once more. “But what about Temple?” said he.
“Ah,” I answered, “I come to that quickly. Mr. Temple is my cousin. After I left your uncle's house my father took me to Charlestown.”
“Is he a Charlestown Temple?” demanded Mr. Jackson. “For I spent some time gambling and horse-racing with the gentry there, and I know many of them. I was a wild lad” (I repeat his exact words), “and I ran up a bill in Charlestown that would have filled a folio volume. Faith, all I had left me was the clothes on my back and a good horse. I made up my mind one night that if I could pay my debts and get out of Charlestown I would go into the back country and study law and sober down. There was a Mr. Braiden in the ordinary who staked me two hundred dollars at rattle-and-snap against my horse. Gad, sir, that was providence. I won. I left Charlestown with honor, I studied law at Salisbury in North Carolina, and I have come here to practise it.”
“You seem to have the talent,” said I, smiling at the remembrance of the Hump Gibson incident.
“That is my history in a nutshell,” said Mr. Jackson. “And now,” he added, “since you are Mr. Temple's cousin and friend and an old acquaintance of mine to boot, I will tell you where I think he is.”
“Where is that?” I asked eagerly.
“I'll stake a cowbell that Sevier will stop at the Widow Brown's,” he replied. “I'll put you on the road. But mind you, you are to tell Mr. Temple that he is to come back here and race me at Greasy Cove.”
“I'll warrant him to come,” said I.
Whereupon we left the inn together, more amicably than before. Mr. Jackson had a thoroughbred horse near by that was a pleasure to see, and my admiration of his mount seemed to set me as firmly in Mr. Jackson's esteem again as that gentleman himself sat in the saddle. He was as good as his word, rode out with me some distance on the road, and reminded me at the last that Nick was to race him.
Itwas not to my credit that I should have lost the trail, after Mr. Jackson put me straight. But the night was dark, the country unknown to me, and heavily wooded and mountainous. In addition to these things my mind ran like fire. My thoughts sometimes flew back to the wondrous summer evening when I trod the Nollichucky trace with Tom and Polly Ann, when I first looked down upon the log palace of that prince of the border, John Sevier. Well I remembered him, broad-shouldered, handsome, gay, a courtier in buckskin. Small wonder he was idolized by the Watauga settlers, that he had been their leader in the struggle of Franklin for liberty. And small wonder that Nick Temple should be in his following.
Nick! My mind was in a torment concerning him. What of his mother? Should I speak of having seen her? I went blindly through the woods for hours after the night fell, my horse stumbling and weary, until at length I came to a lonely clearing on the mountain side, and a fierce pack of dogs dashed barking at my horse's heels. There was a dark cabin ahead, indistinct in the starlight, and there I knocked until a gruff voice answered me and a tousled man came to the door. Yes, I had missed the trail. He shook his head when I asked for the Widow Brown's, and bade me share his bed for the night. No, I would go on, I was used to the backwoods. Thereupon he thawed a little, kicked the dogs, and pointed to where the mountain dipped against the star-studded sky. There was a trail there which led direct to the Widow Brown's, if I could follow it. So I left him.
Once the fear had settled deeply of missing Nick at the Widow Brown's, I put my mind on my journey, and thanks to my early training I was able to keep the trail. It doubled around the spurs, forded stony brooks in diagonals, and often in the darkness of the mountain forest I had to feel for the blazes on the trees. There was no making time. I gained the notch with the small hours of the morning, started on with the descent, crisscrossing, following a stream here and a stream there, until at length the song of the higher waters ceased and I knew that I was in the valley. Suddenly there was no crown-cover over my head. I had gained the road once more, and I followed it hopefully, avoiding the stumps and the deep wagon ruts where the ground was spongy.
The morning light revealed a milky mist through which the trees showed like phantoms. Then there came stains upon the mist of royal purple, of scarlet, of yellow like a mandarin's robe, peeps of deep blue fading into azure as the mist lifted. The fiery eye of the sun was cocked over the crest, and beyond me I saw a house with its logs all golden brown in the level rays, the withered cornstalks orange among the blackened stumps. My horse stopped of his own will at the edge of the clearing. A cock crew, a lean hound prostrate on the porch of the house rose to his haunches, sniffed, growled, leaped down, and ran to the road and sniffed again. I listened, startled, and made sure of the distant ring of many hoofs. And yet I stayed there, irresolute. Could it be Tipton and his men riding from Jonesboro to capture Sevier? The hoof-beats grew louder, and then the hound in the road gave tongue to the short, sharp bark that is the call to arms. Other dogs, hitherto unseen, took up the cry, and turning in my saddle I saw a body of men riding hard at me through the alley in the forest. At their head, on a heavy, strong-legged horse, was one who might have stood for the figure of turbulence, and I made no doubt that this was Colonel Tipton himself,—Colonel Tipton, once secessionist, now champion of the Old North State and arch-enemy of John Sevier. At sight of me he reined upso violently that his horse went back on his haunches, and the men behind were near overriding him.
“Look out, boys,” he shouted, with a fierce oath, “they've got guards out!” He flung back one hand to his holster for a pistol, while the other reached for the powder flask at his belt. He primed the pan, and, seeing me immovable, set his horse forward at an amble, his pistol at the cock.
“Who in hell are you?” he cried.
“A traveller from Virginia,” I answered.
“And what are you doing here?” he demanded, with another oath.
“I have just this moment come here,” said I, as calmly as I might. “I lost the trail in the darkness.”
He glared at me, purpling, perplexed.
“Is Sevier there?” said he, pointing at the house.
“I don't know,” said I.
Tipton turned to his men, who were listening.
“Surround the house,” he cried, “and watch this fellow.”
I rode on perforce towards the house with Tipton and three others, while his men scattered over the corn-field and cursed the dogs. And then we saw in the open door the figure of a woman shading her eyes with her hand. We pulled up, five of us, before the porch in front of her.
“Good morning, Mrs. Brown,” said Tipton, gruffly.
“Good morning, Colonel,” answered the widow.
Tipton leaped from his horse, flung the bridle to a companion, and put his foot on the edge of the porch to mount. Then a strange thing happened. The lady turned deftly, seized a chair from within, and pulled it across the threshold. She sat herself down firmly, an expression on her face which hinted that the late lamented Mr. Brown had been a dominated man. Colonel Tipton stopped, staggering from the very impetus of his charge, and gazed at her blankly.
“I have come for Colonel Sevier,” he blurted. And then, his anger rising, “I will have no trifling, ma'am. He is in this house.”
“La! you don't tell me,” answered the widow, in a tone that was wholly conversational.
“He is in this house,” shouted the Colonel.
“I reckon you've guessed wrong, Colonel,” said the widow.
There was an awkward pause until Tipton heard a titter behind him. Then his wrath exploded.
“I have a warrant against the scoundrel for high treason,” he cried, “and, by God, I will search the house and serve it.”
Still the widow sat tight. The Rock of Ages was neither more movable nor calmer than she.
“Surely, Colonel, you would not invade the house of an unprotected female.”
The Colonel, evidently with a great effort, throttled his wrath for the moment. His new tone was apologetic but firm.
“I regret to have to do so, ma'am,” said he, “but both sexes are equal before the law.”
“The law!” repeated the widow, seemingly tickled at the word. She smiled indulgently at the Colonel. “What a pity, Mr. Tipton, that the law compels you to arrest such a good friend of yours as Colonel Sevier. What self-sacrifice, Colonel Tipton! What nobility!”
There was a second titter behind him, whereat he swung round quickly, and the crimson veins in his face looked as if they must burst. He saw me with my hand over my mouth.
“You warned him, damn you!” he shouted, and turning again leaped to the porch and tried to squeeze past the widow into the house.
“How dare you, sir?” she shrieked, giving him a vigorous push backwards. The four of us, his three men and myself, laughed outright. Tipton's rage leaped its bounds. He returned to the attack again and again, and yet at the crucial moment his courage would fail him and he would let the widow thrust him back. Suddenly I became aware that there were two new spectators of this comedy. I started and looked again, and was near tocrying out at sight of one of them. The others did cry out, but Tipton paid no heed.
Ten years had made his figure more portly, but I knew at once the man in the well-fitting hunting shirt, with the long hair flowing to his shoulders, with the keen, dark face and courtly bearing and humorous eyes. Yes, humorous even now, for he stood, smiling at this comedy played by his enemy, unmindful of his peril. The widow saw him before Tipton did, so intent was he on the struggle.
“Enough!” she cried, “enough, John Tipton!” Tipton drew back involuntarily, and a smile broadened on the widow's face. “Shame on you for doubting a lady's word! Allow me to present to you—Colonel Sevier.”
Tipton turned, stared as a man might who sees a ghost, and broke into such profanity as I have seldom heard.
“By the eternal God, John Sevier,” he shouted, “I'll hang you to the nearest tree!”
Colonel Sevier merely made a little ironical bow and looked at the gentleman beside him.
“I have surrendered to Colonel Love,” he said.
Tipton snatched from his belt the pistol which he might have used on me, and there flashed through my head the thought that some powder might yet be held in its pan. We cried out, all of us, his men, the widow, and myself,—all save Sevier, who stood quietly, smiling. Suddenly, while we waited for murder, a tall figure shot out of the door past the widow, the pistol flew out of Tipton's hand, and Tipton swung about with something like a bellow, to face Mr. Nicholas Temple.
Well I knew him! And oddly enough at that time Riddle's words of long ago came to me, “God help the woman you love or the man you fight.” How shall I describe him? He was thin even to seeming frailness,—yet it was the frailness of the race-horse. The golden hair, sun-tanned, awry across his forehead, the face the same thin and finely cut face of the boy. The gray eyes held an anger that did not blaze; it was far more dangerous than that. Colonel John Tipton looked, and as I live he recoiled.
“If you touch him, I'll kill you,” said Mr. Temple. Nor did he say it angrily. I marked for the first time that he held a pistol in his slim fingers. What Tipton might have done when he swung to his new bearings is mere conjecture, for Colonel Sevier himself stepped up on the porch, laid his hand on Temple's arm, and spoke to him in a low tone. What he said we didn't hear. The astonishing thing was that neither of them for the moment paid any attention to the infuriated man beside them. I saw Nick's expression change. He smiled,—the smile the landlord had described, the smile that made men and women willing to die for him. After that Colonel Sevier stooped down and picked up the pistol from the floor of the porch and handed it with a bow to Tipton, butt first. Tipton took it, seemingly without knowing why, and at that instant a negro boy came around the house, leading a horse. Sevier mounted it without a protest from any one.
“I am ready to go with you, gentlemen,” he said.
Colonel Tipton slipped his pistol back into his belt, stepped down from the porch, and leaped into his saddle, and he and his men rode off into the stump-lined alley in the forest that was called a road. Nick stood beside the widow, staring after them until they had disappeared.
“My horse, boy!” he shouted to the gaping negro, who vanished on the errand.
“What will you do, Mr. Temple?” asked the widow.
“Rescue him, ma'am,” cried Nick, beginning to pace up and down. “I'll ride to Turner's. Cozby and Evans are there, and before night we shall have made Jonesboro too hot to hold Tipton and his cutthroats.”
“La, Mr. Temple,” said the widow, with unfeigned admiration, “I never saw the like of you. But I know John Tipton, and he'll have Colonel Sevier started for North Carolina before our boys can get to Jonesboro.”
“Then we'll follow,” says Nick, beginning to pace again. Suddenly, at a cry from the widow, he stopped and stared at me, a light in his eye like a point of steel. His hand slipped to his waist.
“A spy,” he said, and turned and smiled at the lady,who was watching him with a kind of fascination; “but damnably cool,” he continued, looking at me. “I wonder if he thinks to outride me on that beast? Look you, sir,” he cried, as Mrs. Brown's negro came back struggling with a deep-ribbed, high-crested chestnut that was making half circles on his hind legs, “I'll give you to the edge of the woods, and lay you a six-forty against a pair of moccasins that you never get back to Tipton.”
“God forbid that I ever do,” I answered fervently.
“What,” he exclaimed, “and you here with him on this sneak's errand!”
“I am here with him on no errand,” said I. “He and his crew came on me a quarter of an hour since at the edge of the clearing. Mr. Temple, I am here to find you, and to save time I will ride with you.”
“Egad, you'll have to ride like the devil then,” said he, and he stooped and snatched the widow's hand and kissed it with a daring gallantry that I had thought to find in him. He raised his eyes to hers.
“Good-by, Mr. Temple,” she said,—there was a tremor in her voice,—“and may you save our Jack!”
He snatched the bridle from the boy, and with one leap he was on the rearing, wheeling horse. “Come on,” he cried to me, and, waving his hat at the lady on the porch, he started off with a gallop up the trail in the opposite direction from that which Tipton's men had taken.
All that I saw of Mr. Nicholas Temple on that ride to Turner's was his back, and presently I lost sight of that. In truth, I never got to Turner's at all, for I met him coming back at the wind's pace, a huge, swarthy, determined man at his side and four others spurring after, the spume dripping from the horses' mouths. They did not so much as look at me as they passed, and there was nothing left for me to do but to turn my tired beast and follow at any pace I could make towards Jonesboro.
It was late in the afternoon before I reached the town, the town set down among the hills like a caldron boiling over with the wrath of Franklin. The news ofthe capture of their beloved Sevier had flown through the mountains like seeds on the autumn wind, and from north, south, east, and west the faithful were coming in, cursing Tipton and Carolina as they rode.
I tethered my tired beast at the first picket, and was no sooner on my feet than I was caught in the hurrying stream of the crowd and fairly pushed and beaten towards the court-house. Around it a thousand furious men were packed. I heard cheering, hoarse and fierce cries, threats and imprecations, and I knew that they were listening to oratory. I was suddenly shot around the corner of a house, saw the orator himself, and gasped.
It was Nicholas Temple. There was something awe-impelling in the tall, slim, boyish figure that towered above the crowd, in the finely wrought, passionate face, in the voice charged with such an anger as is given to few men.
“What has North Carolina done for Franklin?” he cried. “Protected her? No. Repudiated her? Yes. You gave her to the Confederacy for a war debt, and the Confederacy flung her back. You shook yourselves free from Carolina's tyranny, and traitors betrayed you again. And now they have betrayed your leader. Will you avenge him, or will you sit down like cowards while they hang him for treason?”
His voice was drowned, but he stood immovable with arms folded until there was silence again.
“Will you rescue him?” he cried, and the roar rose again. “Will you avenge him? By to-morrow we shall have two thousand here. Invade North Carolina, humble her, bring her to her knees, and avenge John Sevier!”
Pandemonium reigned. Hats were flung in the air, rifles fired, shouts and curses rose and blended into one terrifying note. Gradually, in the midst of this mad uproar, the crowd became aware that another man was standing upon the stump from which Nicholas Temple had leaped. “Cozby!” some one yelled, “Cozby!” The cry was taken up. “Huzzay for Cozby! He'll lead us into Caroliny.” He was the huge, swarthy man I had seen riding hard with Nick that morning. A sculptormight have chosen his face and frame for a type of the iron-handed leader of pioneers. Will was supreme in the great features,—inflexible, indomitable will. His hunting shirt was open across his great chest, his black hair fell to his shoulders, and he stood with a compelling hand raised for silence. And when he spoke, slowly, resonantly, men fell back before his words.
“I admire Mr. Temple's courage, and above all his loyalty to our beloved General,” said Major Cozby. “But Mr. Temple is young, and the heated counsels of youth must not prevail. My friends, in order to save Jack Sevier we must be moderate.”
His voice, strong as it was, was lost. “To hell with moderation!” they shouted. “Down with North Carolina! We'll fight her!”
He got silence again by the magnetic strength he had in him.
“Very good,” he said, “but get your General first. If we lead you across the mountains now, his blood will be upon your heads. No man is a better friend to Jack Sevier than I. Leave his rescue to me, and I will get him for you.” He paused, and they were stilled perforce. “I will get him for you,” he repeated slowly, “or North Carolina will pay for the burial of James Cozby.”
There was an instant when they might have swung either way.
“How will ye do it?” came in a thin, piping voice from somewhere near the stump. It may have been this that turned their minds. Others took up the question, “How will ye do it, Major Cozby?”
“I don't know,” cried the Major, “I don't know. And if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. But I will get Nollichucky Jack if I have to burn Morganton and rake the General out of the cinders!”
Five hundred hands flew up, five hundred voices cried, “I'm with ye, Major Cozby!” But the Major only shook his head and smiled. What he said was lost in the roar. Fighting my way forward, I saw him get down from the stump, put his hand kindly on Nick's shoulder, and leadhim into the court-house. They were followed by a score of others, and the door was shut behind them.
It was then I bethought myself of the letter to Mr. Wright, and I sought for some one who would listen to my questions as to his whereabouts. At length the man himself was pointed out to me, haranguing an excited crowd of partisans in front of his own gate. Some twenty minutes must have passed before I could get any word with him. He was a vigorous little man, with black eyes like buttons, he wore brown homespun and white stockings, and his hair was clubbed. When he had yielded the ground to another orator, I handed him the letter. He drew me aside, read it on the spot, and became all hospitality at once. The town was full, and though he had several friends staying in his house I should join them. Was my horse fed? Dinner had been forgotten that day, but would I enter and partake? In short, I found myself suddenly provided for, and I lost no time in getting my weary mount into Mr. Wright's little stable. And then I sat down, with several other gentlemen, at Mr. Wright's board, where there was much guessing as to Major Cozby's plan.
“No other man west of the mountains could have calmed that crowd after that young daredevil Temple had stirred them up,” declared Mr. Wright.
I ventured to say that I had business with Mr. Temple.
“Faith, then, I will invite him here,” said my host. “But I warn you, Mr. Ritchie, that he is a trigger set on the hair. If he does not fancy you, he may quarrel with you and shoot you. And he is in no temper to bectrifled with to-day.”
“I am not an easy person to quarrel with,” I answered.
“To look at you, I shouldn't say that you were,” said he. “We are going to the court-house, and I will see if I can get a word with the young Hotspur and send him to you. Do you wait here.”
I waited on the porch as the day waned. The tumult of the place had died down, for men were gathering in the houses to discuss and conjecture. And presently,sauntering along the street in a careless fashion, his spurs trailing in the dust, came Nicholas Temple. He stopped before the house and stared at me with a fine insolence, and I wondered whether I myself had not been too hasty in reclaiming him. A greeting died on my lips.
“Well, sir” he said, “so you are the gentleman who has been dogging me all day.”
“I dog no one, Mr. Temple,” I replied bitterly.
“We'll not quibble about words,” said he. “Would it be impertinent to ask your business—and perhaps your name?”
“Did not Mr. Wright give you my name?” I exclaimed.
“He might have mentioned it, I did not hear. Is it of such importance?”
At that I lost my temper entirely.
“It may be, and it may not,” I retorted. “I am David Ritchie.”
He changed before my eyes as he stared at me, and then, ere I knew it, he had me by both arms, crying out:—
“David Ritchie! My Davy—who ran away from me—and we were going to Kentucky together. Oh, I have never forgiven you,”—the smile that there was no resisting belied his words as he put his face close to mine—“I never will forgive you. I might have known you—you've grown, but I vow you're still an old man,—Davy, you renegade. And where the devil did you run to?”
“Kentucky,” I said, laughing.
“Oh, you traitor—and I trusted you. I loved you, Davy. Do you remember how I clung to you in my sleep? And when I woke up, the world was black. I followed your trail down the drive and to the cross-roads—”
“It was not ingratitude, Nick,” I said; “you were all I had in the world.” And then I faltered, the sadness of that far-off time coming over me in a flood, and the remembrance of his generous sorrow for me.
“And how the devil did you track me to the Widow Brown's?” he demanded, releasing me.
“A Mr. Jackson had a shrewd notion you were there. And by the way, he was in a fine temper because you had skipped a race with him.”
“That sorrel-topped, lantern-headed Mr. Jackson?” said Nick. “He'll be killed in one of his fine tempers. Damn a man who can't keep his temper. I'll race him, of course. And where are you bound now, Davy?”
“For Louisville, in Kentucky, at the Falls of the Ohio. It is a growing place, and a promising one for a young man in the legal profession to begin life.”
“When do you leave?” said he.
“To-morrow morning, Nick,” said I. “You wanted once to go to Kentucky; why not come with me?”
His face clouded.
“I do not budge from this town,” said he, “I do not budge until I hear that Jack Sevier is safe. Damn Cozby! If he had given me my way, we should have been forty miles from here by this. I'll tell you. Cozby is even now picking five men to go to Morganton and steal Sevier, and he puts me off with a kind word. He'll not have me, he says.”
“He thinks you too hot. It needs discretion and an old head,” said I.
“Egad, then, I'll commend you to him,” said Nick.
“Now,” I said, “it's time for you to tell me something of yourself, and how you chanced to come into this country.”
“'Twas Darnley's fault,” said Nick.
“Darnley!” I exclaimed; “he whom you got into the duel with—” I stopped abruptly, with a sharp twinge of remembrance that was like a pain in my side. 'Twas Nick took up the name.
“With Harry Riddle.” He spoke quietly, that was the terrifying part of it. “David, I've looked for that man in Italy and France, I've scoured London for him, and, by God, I'll find him before he dies. And when I do find him I swear to you that there will be no such thing as time wasted, or mercy.”
I shuddered. In all my life I had never known such amoment of indecision. Should I tell him? My conscience would give me no definite reply. The question had haunted me all the night, and I had lost my way in consequence, nor had the morning's ride from the Widow Brown's sufficed to bring me to a decision. Of what use to tell him? Would Riddle's death mend matters? The woman loved him, that had been clear to me; yet, by telling Nick what I knew I might induce him to desist from his search, and if I did not tell, Nick might some day run across the trail, follow it up, take Riddle's life, and lose his own. The moment, made for confession as it was, passed.
“They have ruined my life,” said Nick. “I curse him, and I curse her.”
“Hold!” I cried; “she is your mother.”
“And therefore I curse her the more,” he said. “You know what she is, you've tasted of her charity, and you are my father's nephew. If you have been without experience, I will tell you what she is. A common—”
I reached out and put my hand across his mouth.
“Silence!” I cried; “you shall say no such thing. And have you not manhood enough to make your own life for yourself?”
“Manhood!” he repeated, and laughed. It was a laugh that I did not like. “They made a man of me, my parents. My father played false with the Rebels and fled to England for his reward. A year after he went I was left alone at Temple Bow to the tender mercies of the niggers. Mr. Mason came back and snatched what was left of me. He was a good man; he saved me an annuity out of the estate, he took me abroad after the war on a grand tour, and died of a fever in Rome. I made my way back to Charlestown, and there I learned to gamble, to hold liquor like a gentleman, to run horses and fight like a gentleman. We were speaking of Darnley,” he said.
“Yes, of Darnley,” I repeated.
“The devil of a man,” said Nick; “do you remember him, with the cracked voice and fat calves?”
At any other time I should have laughed at the recollection.
“Darnley turned Whig, became a Continental colonel, and got a grant out here in the Cumberland country of three thousand acres. And now I own it.”
“You own it!” I exclaimed.
“Rattle-and-snap,” said Nick; “I played him for the land at the ordinary one night, and won it. It is out here near a place called Nashboro, where this wild, long-faced Mr. Jackson says he is going soon. I crossed the mountains to have a look at it, fell in with Nollichucky Jack, and went off with him for a summer campaign. There's a man for you, Davy,” he cried, “a man to follow through hell-fire. If they touch a hair of his head we'll sack the State of North Carolina from Morganton to the sea.”
“But the land?” I asked.
“Oh, a fig for the land,” answered Nick; “as soon as Nollichucky Jack is safe I'll follow you into Kentucky.” He slapped me on the knee. “Egad, Davy, it seems like a fairy tale. We always said we were going to Kentucky, didn't we? What is the name of the place you are to startle with your learning and calm by your example?”
“Louisville,” I answered, laughing, “by the Falls of the Ohio.”
“I shall turn up there when Jack Sevier is safe and I have won some more land from Mr. Jackson. We'll have a rare old time together, though I have no doubt you can drink me under the table. Beware of these sober men. Egad, Davy, you need only a woolsack to become a full-fledged judge. And now tell me how fortune has buffeted you.”
It was my second night without sleep, for we sat burning candles in Mr. Wright's house until the dawn, making up the time which we had lost away from each other.